In the weeks leading up to July 27, students across the country dressed up their Barbie dolls, stuck them in blenders and submitted the resulting photographs to FreeCulture.org.
The reason? To celebrate National Barbie-in-a-Blender Day, a commemoration of artist Tom Forsythe's 2001 victory over the Mattel Corporation, which sued him for allegedly infringing on its Barbie copyright. A federal judge ruled in favor of Forsythe, saying he had not violated copyright laws when he created the original shots of Barbie in a blender as part of his 1999 "Food Chain Barbie" exhibit.
This year's contest is one of several projects undertaken by FreeCulture.org, a Web site founded in April under the Swarthmore Coalition for the Digital Commons.
The fundamental mission of FreeCulture.org is to "bring balance to copyright and intellectual property law," according to Nelson Pavlosky, a junior at Swarthmore College and co-founder of the group.
Although the group has not yet received its official charter from Swarthmore, leaders anticipate this will happen sometime during the fall semester, Pavlosky said.
After revamping FreeCulture.org in August, the group plans on building a student movement by branching out to 12 other schools, including Brown, this fall.
Pavlosky said members of the group believe copyright law became "ridiculous in scope and length" under the 1976 Copyright Act. That act granted copyright protection lasting until 70 years after the author's death to all U.S. works in the public domain. Also, the act holds that authors do not need to register material in order to receive copyright protection.
These policies violate the principle of free speech by repressing debate and hindering critical discussion, Pavlosky said.
One of the primary aspects of the act opposed by FreeCulture.org is the wide scope of copyright law, Pavlosky said.
"If I scribble something on a cocktail napkin, it's protected," he said.
The group also takes issue with the fact that an author must grant permission for any copyrighted material to be reproduced, Pavlosky said. This feature of the law in particular can be misused to put limits on intellectual discourse, he said.
The Fox News Channel, for example, can control all of its broadcast material and prevent it from being reproduced in public debate forums, he said.
"If I own all of my words, the harder it is for you to argue with me," Pavlosky said. "Should we have to ask for permission if we're criticizing?"
In an effort to get around current copyright restrictions, the Swarthmore Coalition for the Digital Commons actively encourages student musicians and artists to register their work through Creative Commons, a non-profit organization offering less restrictive alternatives to full copyright registration.
The group recently convinced the creators of what Pavlosky called "an existential zombie movie" entitled "Amid the Dead" to register the film with a Creative Commons license.
To honor this achievement, FreeCulture.org is sponsoring a "remixing contest" that encourages participants to use pieces of the film's footage to create a music video, Pavlosky said.
Members of the group said they believe college students can relate to the group's mission and tactics.
"I think people really like what we have to say once they hear it," Pavlosky said. "The biggest problem is just a fundamental lack of knowledge by the general public on a lot of our issues."
This obstacle means the group is still at the "raising awareness stage," Pavlosky said. He equated the group's effort to "trying to start an anti-war group if no one knew we had a military."
Rebecca Neipris '06.5, the group's delegate at Brown, said she believes the mission of the Web site is "incredibly relevant to any college kid right now."
She said she believes that the high number of "politically savvy" students at Brown will likely make it easy to raise awareness and interest.
Neipris became involved with the group after coordinating a June conference titled "Knowledge Held Hostage: Scholarly Versus Corporate Rights in the Digital Age" at the University of Pennsylvania.
It was there that Neipris met Pavlosky and became interested in founding a chapter of the group at Brown.
Neipris, who transferred from George Washington University this fall, said she is still seeking to get Brown's chapter of the group off the ground.
"It's hard because I really want to launch it, but I'm still trying to get oriented here," she said.
She plans to hold a few meetings during the fall semester to gauge interest and spread awareness of the group's mission on campus.
